OPrime
G-League
Generational tanking. I like it. Start today to get some kid currently in utero.
Race to the Bottom thread
- Thread starter iowamcnabb
- Start date
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
He thinks because he said top 8 your numbers are wrong. Not realizing to draft a Wemby 2/3’ds of the league would tank to get into the tournament so they could draft Wemby. The season would suck but the tournament to draft Wemby would be awesome.
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
I think your original numbers were correct and maybe a little low.
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
If you were a really good team one player away you tank like hell to get into the tournament and then you play all your players to win, draft Wemby and win the Championship next year. Every team not with a clear shot to win the Championship would tank.
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Padrino
All-Star
Everybody's got a favorite method to deter tanking, and it's easy to poke holes in just about every proposal, so my attitude is simply that the NBA needs to enforce the rules it's already crafted, and create harsher penalties for breaking them. There are currently rules against what, say, the Jazz are doing right now, but the fines will never be enough of a disincentive for teams. Start charging teams the very first round pick they're trying to tank into a higher value selection, and tanking will cease in a hurry. The problem is that the league office only gestures in the direction of punishment, but never truly holds the tanking teams accountable. Some teams just aren't talented enough to compete for anything other than the lottery, and some teams genuinely suffer untimely injuries that result in the same competitive difficulties. But it shouldn't be hard to distinguish between a bad team and a tanking team, or a team with serious injuries and one that's holding out guys unnecessarily.
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sactowndog
Hall of Famer
As long as you have a model that provides teams some control over their draft position you will have tanking. Increase the possible reward/downside for the tankers like the league did when they went from top 3 to top 4 and you will increase the tanking.
If you want to eliminate tanking you need to eliminate team control. If you want to reduce it then lessen the reward/downside. Anyone who has created a sales compensation system could have told you the new system would be worse.
HndsmCelt
Hall of Famer
I don’t disagree with your assessment, but I would add that. I don’t think the league is particularly motivated to stop high profile teams that are not performing well from getting any extra boost via the draft, no matter how they get there. The uneven enforcement of rules I think largely comes from only disciplining teams. They believe they can get away with pushing around at the end of the day not one owner wants to end the draft or do anything meaningful about teams intentionally performing poorly for draft position. But the league gets a bit embarrassed when you have these games that start to look like two kindergartners and a pillow fight.
This is correct. There's no way around it. Which is why if we want to eliminate tanking we have to look to a new paradigm which you and I both see.
I’d lock records at the ASB. I know people say that then it’s an unbalanced schedule, but unbalanced schedules already exist in an 82 game format. So just rank the teams 1-30 at the ASB, and let that determine the initial order.
Then - automatically put teams 1-4 in the lottery. Teams 5-8 get put in an end season tourney, and the winner becomes the 5th lottery team. The 5 lottery teams all get a 20% chance at #1, the 4 remaining teams get a 25% chance at #2, and so on, so that all 5 spots are lotteried. Spot 6 goes to the tourney runner up. Then rank everyone else 7-30 based on ASB record.
You cannot be in the top 5 lottery three years in a row, unless at least one of those is by virtue of winning the tourney. And if you win the #1 pick you aren’t eligible for the top 5 lottery the next year, unless you win the tourney. If any team is excluded from the lottery then their spot goes to the next worst team, and they are bumped into the tourney. Eliminate pick protections, or at most allow only top 10 protection.
This eliminates the very worst teams from trying to out worst the others. If you are in the bottom 4 you don’t need to lose the most to ensure the worst record so you don’t slip out of the top 5. It also creates some incentive/competition in the 5-8 range. Locking records at the ASB should ensure more competitive play the last 3rd of the season. Eliminating multiple repeat lottery years prevents the Spurs and Jazz problems, where you just live in the lottery.
Not perfect, but certainly better.
Then - automatically put teams 1-4 in the lottery. Teams 5-8 get put in an end season tourney, and the winner becomes the 5th lottery team. The 5 lottery teams all get a 20% chance at #1, the 4 remaining teams get a 25% chance at #2, and so on, so that all 5 spots are lotteried. Spot 6 goes to the tourney runner up. Then rank everyone else 7-30 based on ASB record.
You cannot be in the top 5 lottery three years in a row, unless at least one of those is by virtue of winning the tourney. And if you win the #1 pick you aren’t eligible for the top 5 lottery the next year, unless you win the tourney. If any team is excluded from the lottery then their spot goes to the next worst team, and they are bumped into the tourney. Eliminate pick protections, or at most allow only top 10 protection.
This eliminates the very worst teams from trying to out worst the others. If you are in the bottom 4 you don’t need to lose the most to ensure the worst record so you don’t slip out of the top 5. It also creates some incentive/competition in the 5-8 range. Locking records at the ASB should ensure more competitive play the last 3rd of the season. Eliminating multiple repeat lottery years prevents the Spurs and Jazz problems, where you just live in the lottery.
Not perfect, but certainly better.
Yep.
$500k fine is literally nothing when you're trying to increase your chances of drafting an AJ or Peterson. If Peterson is the next Kobe, we're not talking millions, you start talking about a billion dollar return.
If Wemby hit UFA right now, with no salary cap and owners could spend whatever they wanted, you'd see the numbers exceeding what Juan Soto and Ohtani got recently in baseball.
Well no, if this was a solution that owners would ever consider, it would just be a simple gross up. Basically the team covers the taxes, so your contract value doesn't change, you're just giving them the taxes on the value of the contract to make sure they take home the net amount.
sactowndog
Hall of Famer
Yep. Why I went with a selection based model. It’s not perfect, as no system is, but as along has you had very clear ranking criteria it would allow seeding for drafts without tanking.
Joshyjosh31
Starter
Speaking of tanking
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Not sure about tanking in general but the NBA did at least make it borderline pointless to be the worst team in the league.
The Kings might have a way to look good if they start winning some games. After playing around on tankathon for a minute, yeah, F being the worst team. It's basically a 50/50 bet to be at 5 which would for sure be the Kings luck. The Kings are in a strange spot to end the season since they did trade for Hunter and surely want to see what Murray and Hunter look like before the end of the year. They definitely don't want to look like total crap to end the season if they play them together. It better be Carter, Nique, Hunter, Keegan, and Max/Dylan to end the season and yes, some wins to go with it. Maybe push up to 2 or 3 and look good in the eyes of the NBA?
The Kings might have a way to look good if they start winning some games. After playing around on tankathon for a minute, yeah, F being the worst team. It's basically a 50/50 bet to be at 5 which would for sure be the Kings luck. The Kings are in a strange spot to end the season since they did trade for Hunter and surely want to see what Murray and Hunter look like before the end of the year. They definitely don't want to look like total crap to end the season if they play them together. It better be Carter, Nique, Hunter, Keegan, and Max/Dylan to end the season and yes, some wins to go with it. Maybe push up to 2 or 3 and look good in the eyes of the NBA?
That only happens a few times before it becomes a rounding error. They do it in Europe they can figure it out here.
Again, how do you protect the Kings/NOP/Wizards of the league?
If the Kings can only offer 5/60 and the Lakers can offer 5/40... guess where Peterson is going to sign. And I'd guess the difference probably wouldn't even be that much to begin with.
eleventy
G-League
i don't get it. if the kings can offer MORE (5yrs/60 mil) than the Lakers, why wouldn't the player "take the money"?the PROBLEM is that if two teams offer "equal money", players will always select the knicks or lakers or heat.
was this a typo?
SacTownKid
Hall of Famer
Until the Kings stop acting like the NBA's version of a backwoods truck stop players would easily eat 20 million just to stay away, lol.
eleventy
G-League
Do you mean that literaly?
That a player (especially a new young player) would turn down $20 million because they did not know or like team or locale?
On his second or third contract, maybe, but not on the first.
No, of course not a typo. $20mil over 5 seasons for a truly elite talent is nothing to recoup in endorsements and just future contracts down the line by making sure you're getting your career off to a great start with a great franchise.
Unless the gap the Kings could offer a player was truly significant (like 5/100 for Peterson and the Lakers could be at 5/40), every single elite prospect will link up with a big time franchise for the betterment of their career.
Kings with a bigger budget (assuming this is where this whole scenario is going) that the bad teams get will be in play for the next tier of guys to overpay them. But them, NOP/WAS/UTA won't ever get a look again at top 5 of the class.
Makes me cautious about selecting top ranked players in this year’s high profile draft.
My guess there’s not a lot of Tyrese Haliburton or even DeMarcus Cousins type personalities out there.
eleventy
G-League
you said "elite talent", but your salary estimates (5 years/40 million vs. 5 years/60 million) sound like they are for elite COLLEGE talent, signing their first contract. currently, i believe the contract numbers are set (in the CBA?) but i think the first contract is limited to four years. elsewhere you refer to the "top five", meaning, i assume, in the draft.
i disagree that 20 million is "nothing" - on the contrary, even guys drafted in the top five don't know if they will ever GET a max contract and i believe that most would take the additional 20 mil no matter WHERE it meant they would have to play (for a few years). I know Ace Bailey told utah not to draft him, but those cases are rare. Now, once a player MAKES IT and is considered "an elite pro talent", well, yeah, they are going to pick and choose. But not (i don't think) on a first contract.
which is why, as i said on another thread, if i have the #3 pick, i definitely trade down, hopefully just to #5 or #6 and then i trade down again maybe to #11 or #12 (and hopefully bank a couple of future #1's), mostly because of "the fox factor", that even a marginally elite player will sign now, but leave first chance they get.
now, if we could just find a giannis or khawai or (or better yhet, a DBook, who might stay) in the late lottery.